Finnish quantum unicorn IQM lands €50M from BlackRock
Finnish quantum unicorn IQM lands €50M from BlackRock

The Helsinki-based company, which builds and sells full-stack superconducting quantum computers for on-premises deployment, disclosed the financing today. It was secured before the February announcement of IQM’s SPAC merger with Real Asset Acquisition …

Mistral secures $830M from seven banks to build its own AI data centre
Mistral secures $830M from seven banks to build its own AI data centre

The French AI company has secured the financing from a seven-bank consortium including BNP Paribas, Crédit Agricole CIB, HSBC, and MUFG. The data centre at Bruyères-le-Châtel is expected to be operational in Q2 2026 and is part of a broader push for Eu…

Recap: Europe’s top funding rounds this week (23–29 March)
Recap: Europe’s top funding rounds this week (23–29 March)

A week that spanned semiconductor physics, orbital logistics, defence interceptors, and carob-based chocolate tells you something about the breadth of European and European adjacent capital right now. The dominant thread is not a single sector but a si…

All 11 xAI co-founders have now reportedly left Elon Musk’s AI company
All 11 xAI co-founders have now reportedly left Elon Musk’s AI company

Every co-founder Elon Musk recruited to build xAI has now reportedly left the company. Manuel Kroiss, who led the pretraining team, told people this month that he was departing. Ross Nordeen, described by Business Insider as Musk’s “right-hand operator…

Meta’s new prescription Ray-Ban smart glasses are a distribution play, not a technology leap
Meta’s new prescription Ray-Ban smart glasses are a distribution play, not a technology leap

Meta is preparing to launch two new Ray-Ban smart glasses models designed specifically for prescription wearers, according to a Bloomberg report published on Thursday. The models, codenamed Scriber and Blazer, were first spotted in Federal Communicatio…

tozero launches Europe’s first industrial battery recycling plant
tozero launches Europe’s first industrial battery recycling plant

The Munich startup’s demo plant at Chemical Park Gendorf in Bavaria processes 1,500 tonnes of battery waste a year and produces 100 tonnes of high-purity lithium carbonate, at costs the company says are twice as competitive as conventional miners. A fu…

Ysios Capital launches €100M fund to build biotech companies from Spanish science
Ysios Capital launches €100M fund to build biotech companies from Spanish science

Spain’s largest life sciences VC is moving upstream with InceptionBio, its first fund dedicated to the riskiest stage of biotech: company creation from university and research centre spinouts. CDTI is an anchor LP. The target is at least three new comp…

Keith raises £2M to become the UK’s most automated law firm
Keith raises £2M to become the UK’s most automated law firm

Andy Shovel and Pete Sharman, who built THIS into a market-leading plant-based food brand, are pivoting hard. Keith is an AI-native regulated law firm targeting conveyancing first, with a 24/7 AI client agent and a target of reducing transaction times …

Shield AI raises $2 billion to scale its autonomous combat pilot Hivemind
Shield AI raises $2 billion to scale its autonomous combat pilot Hivemind

Shield AI, the San Diego defence technology company behind the autonomous pilot system Hivemind, announced on Wednesday that it has raised $2 billion in combined funding at a $12.7 billion valuation. The company will use part of the proceeds to acquire…

PaperShell secures €40.3M EU grant to build its first full-scale factory
PaperShell secures €40.3M EU grant to build its first full-scale factory

The Swedish deeptech company has signed a Grant Agreement with the European Commission under the EU Innovation Fund, unlocking €40.3M of a €83M project to expand its Tibro plant to 23,000 tonnes per year capacity by 2030. The material is already NATO-a…